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When I have heard small talk about great men I climb to bed; light my two candles; then Consider what was said; and put aside What Such-a-one remarked and Someone-else replied. They have spoken lightly of my deathless friends, (Lamps for my gloom, hands guiding where I stumble,) Quoting, for shallow conversational ends, What Shelley shrilled, what Blake once wildly muttered .... How can they use such names and be not humble? I have sat silent; angry at what they uttered. The dead bequeathed them life; the dead have said What these can only memorize and mumble.

Dead before I came into this world, grandfather, I carry your name, yet I've never met you. I hear my name, and know that somehow they refer to you. When I scribble those six letters fast, to sign some document or print them neatly in a box, I feel your presence flow with the ink stain and burn through the paper, forever imprinted in my mind. Late summer nights gathered around the dinner table, leftovers being cleared away, faces clouded in cigarette smoke, I hear voices pass the word back and forth in reverence. Somehow I know it's not me the little one grabbing for attention. They speak of you, Andrei, the one I've never met, whose name I carry.

We waded in the shallows, holding his hands, then just fingertips, as his feet slowly lifted off the bottom. The land did not stop at the waterline, but simply became unreachable. His worn face bobbed above the waves, breath in an O as our words, fistfuls of shimmering minnows, scattered, lost on their way to him. The tide carried him out, then back a bit, a gradual letting go into dark waters, and we, still in the ebb, could almost mistake that O for the response we wanted— on the ins,I’ll remember you, on the outs,goodbye.

My grandmother Eliza was the family surgeon. Her scalpel made from a pocketknife she kept in a couple of pinches of snoose. She saved my life by puncturing my festering neck twice with her knife. She saved my brother’s life twice when his arm turned bad. The second time she saved him was when his shoulder turned bad. She always made sure she didn’t cut an artery. She would feel around for days finding the right spot to cut. When a doctor found out she saved my brother’s life he warned her, “You know you could go to jail for this?” Her intern, my Auntie Anny, saved my life when I cut a vessel on my toe. While my blood was squirting out she went out into the night and cut and chewed the bark of plants she knew. She  put the granules of chewed up bark on my toe before the eyes of the folks who came to console my mother because I was bleeding to death. Grandma’s other intern, Auntie Jennie, saved our uncle’s life when his son shot him through the leg by accident. A doctor warned her, too, when he saw how she cured. Her relative cured herself of diabetes. Now, the doctors keep on asking, “How did you cure yourself?”

That year there were many deaths in the village. Germs flew like angels from one house to the next and every family gave up its own. Mothers died at their mending. Children fell at school. Of three hundred twenty, there were eleven left. Then, quietly, the sun set on a day when no one died. And the angels whispered among themselves. And that evening, as he sat on the stone steps, your grandfather felt a small wind on his neck when all the trees were still. And he would tell us always, how he had felt that night, on the skin of his own neck, the angels, passing.

around the house stood an orchard of plum, apple and pear a blackwalnut tree, one white pine, groves of white oak and willow clumps the home of Jessie was largely redwood blood, flesh and bone sprouted inside her womb of redwood for five generations the trees now stand unpruned and wild after relocating so many years before the War the seeds of Jessie have returned afternoon sunlight on the field breezes moving grass and leaves memories with family names wait within the earth, the mountains, the valley, the field, the trees

The food is on the table. Turkey tanned to a cowboy boot luster, potatoes mashed and mounded in a bowl whose lip is lined with blue flowers linked by grey vines faded from washing. Everyone’s heads have turned to elongate the table’s view—a last supper twisted toward a horizon where the Christmas tree, crowned by a window, sets into itself half inclined. Each belly cries. Each pair of eyes admonished by Aunt Photographer. Look up. You’re wined and dined for the older folks who’ve pined to see your faces, your lives, lightly framed in this moment’s flash. Parents are moved, press their children’s heads up from the table, hide their hunger by rubbing lightly wrinkled hands atop their laps. They’ll hold the image as long as need be, seconds away from grace.

Granite Weaving, 1988, by Jesús Moroles To climb, in this instance, upon a horizon Shadow-shadow. Lip-to-lip rock. Ziggurat. Ah, from the base to the top. Sideways. Upwards. Again, in succession. Sprung and sprung Frozen idiom. Barre. Pietrasanta. Mouth and mouth. Sung. Granite. Stitching The way fabric gathers — pinch, scrunch. Not in dreams alone. Not the knot. Step, step, step, step, step. 35 up. As if into clouds Ur, Aqar Quf, Chogha Zanbil, Tikal. Kin. Plank upon plank upon plank upon Little Blocks:ahem. don’t you forget us. a, of, or, but, if, la, and Close and closer to flattened. Rock, Water, Bone: Noisy Pilgrim.

Granny’s come to our house, And ho! my lawzy-daisy! All the childern round the place Is ist a-runnin’ crazy! Fetched a cake fer little Jake, And fetched a pie fer Nanny, And fetched a pear fer all the pack That runs to kiss their Granny! Lucy Ellen’s in her lap, And Wade and Silas Walker Both’s a-ridin’ on her foot, And ’Pollos on the rocker; And Marthy’s twins, from Aunt Marinn’s, And little Orphant Annie, All’s a-eatin’ gingerbread And giggle-un at Granny! Tells us all the fairy tales Ever thought er wundered— And ’bundance o’ other stories— Bet she knows a hunderd!— Bob’s the one fer “Whittington,” And "Golden Locks" fer Fanny! Hear ’em laugh and clap their hands, Listenin’ at Granny! “Jack the Giant-Killer” ’s good; And “Bean-Stalk” ’s another!— So’s the one of “Cinderell’” And her old godmother;— That-un’s best of all the rest— Bestest one of any,— Where the mices scampers home Like we runs to Granny! Granny’s come to our house, Ho! my lawzy-daisy! All the childern round the place Is ist a-runnin’ crazy! Fetched a cake fer little Jake, And fetched a pie fer Nanny, And fetched a pear fer all the pack That runs to kiss their Granny!

A film is always like a book and not like a conversation. — Christian Metz As I saw your face nearing my face, snow fell through a keyhole and opened the door. We went inside and watched windows wax green and gold. Spring, we decided, was more oppressive than winter with its alyssum and clover and the sheer weight of life crowding us off the page. We stayed in bed for years and took our cures patiently from each other’s cups. We read Bleak House and stored our money in socks. Nothing opened as we did.